


float like a feather in a beautiful world

by CadetDru



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 18-Month Time Gap (Rusty Quill Gaming), Cooking, Gen, Lost Love, Sad Backstory, Second Best, Teambuilding, The One Who Got Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29053365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: "Alright.  So, your perfect woman got away?"Howard nodded down to Zolf. "And any time now, she'll come charging in on a white horse, promising to take me away from this boring life and go off on adventures with her."
Relationships: Howard Carter & Zolf Smith
Comments: 13
Kudos: 16





	float like a feather in a beautiful world

It had been well over a year since Zolf Smith had left his group in Prague. Everything was pretty much the worst, but somehow had the promise of getting worse still. Zolf was holding out hope, was hoping that his hope would grow from itself. This somehow meant that Zolf was trying to make dinner while Howard Carter listed off people that could shoe up at their doorstep from Howard's own past. It was mostly archaeologists and thieves, former associates and acquaintances who wouldn't know him from Apophis. 

Howard slapped his hand down on the countertop that Zolf was chopping vegetables on. Zolf raised the knife up and up towards Howard's throat. "That's it!" Howard said, waving the knife away. The man didn't even have the decency to acknowledge he was being threatened. "I know who it would be. The one person who would have no reason to seek me out, but I'd want to see. If she shows up our door, it'd only be to kill me." He tilted his head up heroically, trying to strike his Dashing pose. Zolf hated it when Howard practiced. 

"Ex-lover?" Zolf said, returning the knife to the vegetables.

"The timing never worked," Howard said. "We met at this bar in Cairo. I was dealing with a situation gone wrong, and she was going through something of her own. I didn't see her at first, she was just a shadow on the wall. She wanted to try the whiskey and I told her the gin was better." Howard smiled at nothing in particular. "She was amazing."

"Proper lady," Zolf said, not quite making it a question.

"Proper rakish rogue," Howard said. "I'm too pretty to really pull it off, you know. She had these knives, and she was sharp as one herself." 

"But you were sharper?" Zolf said.

"She saved my life," Howard said. "A few times, in a few different ways. Her friends wanted to kill me and she stepped in. She chained me up. She was so...perfect."

Zolf put the knife down. "Alright. So, your perfect woman got away?"

Howard nodded down to Zolf. "And any time now, she'll come charging in on a white horse, promising to take me away from this boring life and go off on adventures with her."

"That's not going to happen," Zolf said.

"Of course. That's how we'll know it's a trick," Howard said, sighing directly towards Zolf's head.

"Go sit down," Zolf snapped. Howard grabbed a chair. "What's your adventurer look like?"

Howard opened and closed his mouth a few times. "She was slim and pale and wore dark leather and..."

Zolf rolled his eyes, prepared for this sort of thing. 

"She had dark hair, cut really short." Howard waved a hand vaguely around his face and neck. "She had a scar." He was less certain of his words. "Her voice..." He trailed off.

"Yeah?" Zolf prompted.

"She was from England. London, I think. Accent was pretty clear. She didn't talk much. You listened when she talked. I listened."

Zolf clenched his jaw. "How many fingers did she have?"

Howard flexed his own fingers. "The normal amount, I think." 

Zolf didn't want to ask the name. He didn't want to suggest the name. For all their talk of people from their past turning up, he was trying not to think of Sasha or Hamid. "Did she..." he said.

"She was missing a finger," Howard said. "Sasha was so good with those daggers, though."

"Sasha..." Zolf echoed. "Sasha Racket."

Howard froze, confusion and fear and delight playing over his face. "Wilde knew her too," Howard said. He didn't exactly have a question there, but it was hovering. 

"I knew Sasha," Zolf said. "If she shows up on a white horse, I promise I won't let her take you away."

"Thanks," Howard said. 

Zolf shook his head and went back to preparing dinner. "Nothing to do with you, mate," he grumbled to himself. There was so much he wanted to ask Howard about her, so much he wasn't ready to hear. 


End file.
